


you seem like you're fearless (and maybe you're my perfect fix)

by forcynics



Series: holiday fic 2011 [7]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Teacher/Guardian figure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-17
Updated: 2011-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-24 00:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6135694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forcynics/pseuds/forcynics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere along the way Elena ends up thinking that she's the one who needs <i>him</i>, and Alaric can't make himself tell her that she's got it all wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you seem like you're fearless (and maybe you're my perfect fix)

 

 

 

He only means to stay for a few nights, and then it all unravels from there.  
   
They’re just kids, he reasons, and they need someone. There’s a funeral – _two_ funerals – to take care of, and he can’t just leave them to deal with that, not when they’ve lately been dragged through deeper hells than he ever could have imagined.  
   
Jeremy retreats to his room, and Elena drifts around the house, and sometimes they find each other in the middle, like magnets, and Alaric gives them space, doesn’t know how to be here beyond just physically _being here,_ on a makeshift bed that is the couch in the living room.  
   
He puts off going back to his apartment, because they’re kids and they need an adult around, because Jenna was their guardian and Elena is Isobel’s daughter, and really, the whole situation is all kinds of fucked up. He doesn’t know exactly what he is to them, but he’s something and they’ve got nothing else.  
   
So he stays.  
   
He stays on the couch, though, doesn’t venture into Jenna’s room, and drowns himself in alcohol and regret when the grief bites at him too hard. Elena’s mouth gets all tight whenever she comes home and finds him like that – as if she doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or sympathetic, he thinks. He wants to ask her how she does it, how she’s coping with any of this, but he figures she’s probably not, just putting up an act.  
   
Which is more than can be said for him, at least. Alaric might not be sure what exactly he is to Elena, but he’s pretty definite that it’s not a role model.  
   
   
   
   
   
Summer passes slowly, drags on, like everything else is as paused as he is.  
   
He stays, finds the closest thing to comfort here in this house with Elena and Jeremy, the only two people left who know what it’s like to be human amidst this crazy, supernatural world.  
   
Still, it scratches at something inside him when Elena accepts his presence with such relief, as if she needs him here, as if she’s grateful – he feels guilty that she doesn’t seem to realize this he needs this too, that he can’t be alone. He’s using her as much as she’s using him but the difference is that she’s seventeen years old and she’s supposed to be the kid.  
   
So he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t own up to it, doesn’t admit how certain he is that he would go crazy without this, them, her.  
   
   
   
   
   
It doesn’t last forever. It doesn’t last more than two months.  
   
Elena turns eighteen, and school is starting soon, and there are too many things wrong with this situation, namely the fact that they’re all missing the point. He’s supposed to be taking care of them, not... whatever this has been.  
   
But when he tells Elena that he has to get out of here, he has to get back to his own apartment, they don’t need him – _better off without him, really_ – she looks so stunned, like she doesn’t know how she’s going to do this. Which is crazy, because even amidst everything that’s been going on, she’s got her head on way better than he does.  
   
He can’t comprehend the idea that she needs him, that she could have it so utterly backwards. (Or could somehow think that they’ve been doing this the right way, that this situation in itself isn’t every kind of _backwards_ out there.)  
   
Still, she looks—she looks so _sad_ , so utterly let down, and it stays in his head long after he’s pushed out the front door, tearing inside his chest and pushing up all sorts of repressed guilt. He can’t get her face out of his head all day long, or the next day either, and when he finally does cave and return, he reflects that it’s probably a really bad sign that a few twists of her lips are all it takes to make him surrender.  
   
   
   
   
   
He agrees to help her train, because he knows what’s it like to feel weak, knows how easy it is to feel crippled by your humanity when you’re surrounded by the supernatural. He knows it all too well, relates too much. He gets it, when she swallows tightly or fear flits across her eyes – he gets that she wishes she could be stronger, because if there is one thing he knows Elena Gilbert fears it is being too weak.  
   
And it is for this that he holds her in awe, how she always tries to fight back, how she manages to be so constantly determined _not_ to be weak. She is almost forcibly blind to her own weaknesses, dangerously so, but he admires her for that too, because doesn’t he wish he could pretend the same?  
   
So he teaches her when she asks, teaches her how to throw a punch, teaches her how to use the weapons he designed.  
   
He teaches her the physicality of strength, and all the while she is blind to the fact that she is teaching him to be strong too, how to refuse the fear when it strikes, when his every thought is screaming that he is only _human,_ because so is she, and if an eighteen-year-old, so damnably _young_ , can be so strong out of her element then he’s not going to let her show him up.  
   
(But that’s a game he’s pretty sure he’s failing.)  
   
   
   
   
   
He’s downing a beer that is definitely not his first in the kitchen one night (like every other night) when she gets home. Elena tosses her keys on the kitchen table, runs a hand through her hair tiredly, and opens the fridge. He’s a little surprised when she emerges with her own beer, twisting off the cap expertly, but all he says is “Tough day?”  
   
In the back of his mind, he’s aware that there is probably some kind of protocol somewhere for the proper response when the-kid-you’re-sort-of-taking-care-of-who’s-not-really-a-kid-but-is-still-underage starts popping beers in the evening, and that his response is probably not at all in line with that protocol, but he ignores that.  
   
He doesn’t know exactly what he is to Elena, but he is definitely not someone who has any leg to stand on when it comes to warning her about drinking.  
   
Elena sighs, appearing to seriously contemplate the question as she leans her head back against the freezer. “Average,” she finally decides, and takes a rather long sip from the bottle. Alaric figures that ‘average’ for Elena is still probably several degrees worse than ‘average’ for any normal person, and grimaces.  
   
“Damon?” he hazards.  
   
“Don’t want to talk about it.” She shakes her head and he’s not sure if that means it’s _not_ Damon, or if that’s just part of her refusal to talk. He doesn’t ask.  
   
They fall into silence after that, just sip away at their beers, and he’s not really sure how long it lasts. It lasts until Elena suddenly says “Thanks for being here, Ric.”  
   
It’s completely random, blurted out from nowhere, but the words are said so carefully it makes him wonder if she was picking over them in her head before she spoke up.  
   
“Elena,” he starts to say, slowly, before he realizes that he has to follow it up with something, can’t just say her name and leave it hanging there, leave her hanging – but he can’t tell her what he wants to say either, can’t bring himself to point out that he should be thanking her, that she’s the one who’s trying to get him back on his feet, she’s the one who’s been teaching him in this backwards, fucked-up thing they’ve got going on.  
   
No, he can’t really tell her any of that.  
   
Not even when she frowns at him, eyebrows sloped with confusion, clearly expecting more of a response. Even then, he only sighs loudly, and gets to his feet, places his beer down on the counter in a rather decisive motion.  He starts to step closer to where she’s standing—  
   
“Wait, are you leaving again?” she asks, a terrible mix of nervous and disappointed, cheeks flushed. She bites her lip after she throws it out there and just _stares_ at him, and it feels like she’s focused all her pent-up accusation into one look, which really, really should not be affecting him so much.  
   
“No,” he assures her quickly. “No, no, fuck, that’s not—that’s not at all—” He runs a hand over his face, sighs again, too tired and too close to being drunk for this. He lowers his hand a second later, and somehow it finds its way to Elena’s shoulder when he does. Her eyebrows slide together again, forehead wrinkling, but she doesn’t say anything.  
   
“Don’t worry about it,” he finally says. “That’s what I meant—you don’t—you don’t have to thank me.”  
   
His hand falls from her shoulder, and he curls his fingers around her wrist without thinking – and then all he can think is how _thin_ her wrist is, and how he’s pretty sure he can feel her pulse right there, even though he’s never been too good at that kind of thing. But that’s definitely it, fluttering under his fingers.  
   
He releases his grip, stumbles back a step; his back brushes the counter.  
   
Elena doesn’t look accusatory anymore, only _wary_ , but somehow that’s worse, makes him feel like this right here is even worse than it is, like he’s—like he’s _done_ something, or like she thinks he would. But the expression passes in a second, and then she’s shakily smiling at him – “Okay,” she says quietly – and she looks grateful again, like she’s still thinking thank yous in her head.  
   
He almost wants to shake her until she gets how wrong she has it, all of it, all of this.  
   
Instead, he somehow manages to just smile back at her.  
 

 

   
   
And then later, when they sit down on the couch to watch some mindless television before going to bed, and her fingers somehow find his and wrap around them tightly just to squeeze, he closes his eyes and pretends like it’s not all fucked up, pretends like it’s okay if Elena thinks she needs him too –  
   
and somehow manages to just squeeze back.

 

 


End file.
